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The insurance industry : an analysis of strategy reporting trends

Perils, Randall Leroy (2012-12)

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.

Thesis

The financial crisis of the last decade has resulted in a change in the way organisations do their reporting. The trend has been away from annual financial reports towards integrated reporting. Integrated reporting includes not only financial information but also information showing the effect the organisation has on the environment and the society in which it operates.
The research conducted in this study aimed to determine the level to which organisations in the insurance industry disclosed information relating to strategy in their annual reports and their sustainability report. Five companies in the insurance industry were studied using their publicly available, sustainable and annual or integrated annual reports for the 2010 period.
In order to measure the levels of strategy disclosure, three baselines were created and used in surveying the insurance companies. Baseline 1 was based on the GRI G3 reporting guidelines, baseline 2 on the strategic architecture of Ungerer, Pretorius and Herholdt (2011) and baseline 3 was based on the business model elements of Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010).
The conclusions reached in the study were that the overall level of strategy disclosure within the insurance industry is 69 percent. The level of strategy disclosure for the individual baselines was 69 percent for baseline 1, 67 percent for baseline 2 and 70 percent for baseline 3.